2 missing on raging Green River

High, cold and swift waters contributed to the disappearance of two men Saturday on the Green River and caused the King County Office and the county Department of Emergency Management to close the Green and Cedar rivers to all recreation until further notice.

High, cold and swift waters contributed to the disappearance of two men Saturday on the Green River and caused the King County Office and the county Department of Emergency Management to close the Green and Cedar rivers to all recreation until further notice.

Searches continued early Monday for the two missing men.

King County Sheriff’s Sgt. John Urquart said that at about 12 p.m., a 45-year-old man disappeared underwater in his kayak and failed to surface downstream from Kanasket Palmer State Park in the Green River Gorge east of Auburn.

At about 4 p.m., four men were thrown into the water near Flaming Geyser State Park southeast of Auburn when the two inflatable rafts they had tied together flipped. Three of the men were rescued, but the fourth, a 34-year-old African American man from Federal Way, disappeared.